The present invention relates to a laser scanner which acquires point cloud data.
In recent years, in a field of a civil engineering and an architecture, a laser scanner which acquires point cloud data is used as a device which performs a distance measurement and a shape measurement.
In a conventional laser scanner, when a scanning area is set in advance and scanning conditions (for instance, a scanning speed and a light emission frequency) are once set, the scanning area is entirely scanned under the scanning conditions as set.
On the other hand, in a case where an object to be measured has a monotonous shape, a scanning density (the number of measuring point data per unit area) (a point cloud density) may be practically low. Alternatively, in a case where the object to be measured has a complicated shape, a higher point cloud density is better. Therefore, the point cloud density is set under the most demanded scanning conditions. Therefore, even a portion with a monotonous shape (e.g., a wall surface of a building) must be scanned in high density, and an enormous amount of scanning data must be acquired, which is not practical and economical.